Women across Nigeria are protesting the abduction of 234 schoolgirls from Chibok, in north east Nigeria, which took place on Monday April the 14th. Starting from Wednesday the 30th of April, protests and rallies are planned in Abuja, Ibadan, Maiduguri,…

“Policing our Sexuality: The Conservatives War Arsenal Grows” by Happy Mwende Kinyili for the Queer African Network The recently passed bills in Nigeria, the Same-Sex Prohibition Act, and in Uganda, the Anti-Homosexuality Act and the Anti-Pornography Act, have raised the…

Pambazuka – Why we must stop this gay witch-hunt now 02 Mar 14 President Yoweri Museveni has done it. Against widespread expectation raised by his earlier pledge, the Ugandan leader turned around this week and signed into law the contentious…

From Center for Women’s Global Leadership by Bernedette Muthien, South Africa In 1993, the year of the germinal UN conference in Vienna, the first President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, affirmed that all freedoms (and hence oppressions) are interdependent. This…

vy Kombo began her career in music in 1993. Her albums ‘Mufudzi Wangu’ ‘My shephered’ -1993, ‘Ndinokudai Jesu’ ‘I love you Jesus’-1994, ‘Vimbai naJehovah’ “Trust in the Lord’- 1995, ‘Kutenda’ ‘Faith’ -1996, ‘Revival Songs’-1997, and ‘Ndaidziwanepi Nyasha’ ‘From where would I receive such grace’ -1998 made her into a household name. In 2000 she released the album ‘Nyengetera’ ‘Pray’. Her collaborations with the South African outfit that included Vuyo Mokoena, Zodwa and others produced the hit album ‘Nguva yakwana’ “The time is now.’ She then released other albums carrying the hit song ‘Handidzokere Shure’ literally translated ‘I will never go back’ but meaning ” I will never regress.” In 2002 she received a National Art Merit Award (NAMA) for Best Selling Gospel Artiste.

Ayesha Imam and the women she worked with for years in the Nigerian organization BAOBAB for Women’s Human Rights possess those very traits. The group, founded in 1996, fights to protect women’s rights in the maze of the Nigerian legal system, with its overlapping religious, secular and customary laws and courts.

Imam tells me they use tools from whichever system can “recuperate rights,” believing it is often possible to arrive at similar conclusions by working through Muslim discourses or international human rights. “My issue,” she underscores, “is not where you come from, but where you arrive at.”

From inkanyiso by by Lerato Dumse On the 1st of August 2013, a 17 year old self identifying transgender (youth) was one of the approximately 23 suicides reported daily in South Africa with 230 serious attempts. He hanged himself. According…

Via Nigerian Curiosity on Child marriage in Nigeria “I wish I had something to add but, this reaction from Stella Damasus shall suffice. For Now” I’ve been thinking on this, its a non starter that is how can this be…

It is nearly two months since the Nigerian Senate passed the Same Sex Marriage Bill [SSMB 2013] yet the Bill is still awaiting presidential approval. It’s not clear why Goodluck Jonathan is dithering over a decision but possibly because of…

â€œThis is the place where the first lesbian was killed here in Thokoza, we are gathered here to express our animosity towards this placeâ€, said Sister A, who is member of Ihawu, a Lesbian organisation working in Kathorus (Katlehong, Thokoza and Vosloorus) when she addressed the hyped up group.

â€œWe are marching in honour of our fallen lesbian sisters, for the spirit of Duduzile Zozo and Nokuthula Radebe.

From inkanyiso – Another young black lesbian murdered. Duduzile Zozo, a 26 year old from Thokoza, East of Johannesburg was murdered on 30th June, 2013. Daily Sun, a local tabloid newspaper reported that, “The 26-year-old’s half-naked body was found in…

This form of violation is perpetrated with the explicit intention of â€˜curingâ€™ the lesbian of her
love for other women. Although many heterosexual survivors of rape attest to the stated intentions of their assailants as punitive (they have done something wrong, and thus â€˜deserveâ€™ rape), survivors of â€˜curative rapeâ€™ make it clear that their attackers were interested in humiliating and punishing them for their choice of sexual identity and lifestyle and in â€˜transformingâ€™ them â€“ by coercion â€“ into heterosexual women.

In writing this piece I searched the internet for definitions of ‘access’ and came up with a range of gobbledygook that really says nothing. So I came up with my own simple definition in relation to healthcare for poor and…

From Feminists SA – Rape as slang – or a banal misogyny Almost everyday, I hear something that disturbs me; the use of rape casually, as a slang, mostly by males, on social media and in conversations. “Rape” is used…

How well this will work remains to be seen. There are millions of Haitian women who fall completely outside the radar of the courts, the government, local and international NGOs and any other official body. There also seems to be a focus on violence in camps but violence also takes place in established neighbourhoods such as Jalouzi and Cite Soleil. And women are often too fearful to report sexual violence especially when the perpetrator is someone they know – family member, neighbor, co-worker. Legal reforms are needed and a step in the right direction but there has to be education and rape centers opened in all the neighborhoods – if women do not have access to support then they the violators will remain free.

Ayiti Kale Je – Haiti Grassroots Watch – HaÃ¯ti Veedor – English The workers’ comments were backed up by a recent report from “Better Work,” an agency of the UN’s International Labor Organization, which found that half of the 22…

From Bernedette Muthien gendercide it took a full week of straitjacketing generations of genocidal femicidal trauma for the clay dam wall to explode and flood me in torrents of collective grief a poet with no words a lifelong activist struck dumb…

My most visceral thoughts are right now with all the children who have been robbed of their childhoods by war and conflict. Oftentimes war and conflict can be in the home, in the family. Sometimes it is literally in war trenches. It is the time to speak out for the protection of the African child’s childhood where the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and other documents such as the African Charter on the Rights and Responsibilities, fall short. Heaven, bless the child to speak and be heard. Heaven, protect the child.